Chapter 4:
Victory
SLOWLY, STEADILY, WASHINGTON'S POLITICAL CLIMATE CAME
AROUND to favoring the idea of a park at Mesa Verde. Congressman John
Shafroth's yeoman efforts on behalf of the park paid dividends as the
legislative sessions rolled by. He had educated fellow House members
sufficiently to change congressional attitudes, but he had earlier
warned Virginia McClurg that turning the ruins over to the state or to
the women would create vehement opposition from the Smithsonian
Institution and from the archaeological societies. McClurg, Lucy
Peabody, and the others had worked to overcome that opposition, in the
face of strong doubts outside of Colorado that their plans could
succeed. The death of Senator Henry Teller's park bill in 1904 showed
the depth of feeling. In that case, the issue was not the creation of
the park itself, but who would have the right to excavate the ruins. The
Smithsonian sought to retain that privilege. When the opposing sides
failed to compromise, the bill died. [1]
In 1905, the Association members geared up for
another try. A new urgency drove themnewcomers to Colorado were laying
claim to 160-acre homestead sites in several canyons, a potential
complication of the ownership issue. As these homesteaders struggled for
a toehold, giving their names to Prater, Morefield, and Waters canyons
in the process, they pushed the Association women into high gear to
achieve their prize. [2] Each in his or her own
way, the homesteader and the society woman chased the best of all worlds
at the end of the western rainbow.
Shafroth had been correct in his assessment that it
would be easier to pass a bill creating a national park than one
creating a state park, and, with some reservations, McClurg finally
concurred. Shafroth, however, no longer sat in the House, and despite
the best efforts of Colorado representative Herschel Hogg, one of
Colorado's leading attorneys and a Telluride resident, the 1905 bill
died on the floor after it came out of committee. On the state front,
the Historical Society backed Hogg's bill unreservedly, as did several
archaeological societies throughout the country. [3] Although another session and another year had
passed with success as elusive as ever, park support had grown in and
out of Congress. The women stood on the threshold of victory when 1906
arrived.
Years of lobbying, promoting, and educating now
started to pay rich dividends. From President Theodore Roosevelt to his
secretary of the interior, through Congress to the Colorado people, the
mood seemed to favor the national park plan. The women also reaped
benefits from the now thriving conservation movement, which had caught
the general public's attention as never before. For the past thirty
years or so, Americans had been hearing and reading more and more about
the general theme of conservation of natural resources, with particular
emphasis on the future of forests and agriculture. In the arid west,
these two subjects often translated into water issues.
With the popular Roosevelt in the White House, using
the office as a "bully pulpit" for one of his favorite subjects,
conservation came into favor as never before. Within the larger movement
arose individuals who supported conservation not so much to protect
watersheds or to assure America of future timber reserves but as a way
to preserve wilderness areas for their inherent aesthetic, spiritual,
and moral values. The two factions were accommodated nicely in the
national park movement, although the seeds of dispute were sown for
later disagreements between those who would favor the concept of
multiple use of resources and those who would argue for preservation. At
Mesa Verde, this particular conflict would erupt over the issue of
whether grazing and coal mining should be allowed.
As early as the 1860s and 1870s, the wonders of
Yellowstone and Yosemite had been called to the attention of Americans.
As a result, the former was set aside as a park, and the latter was
given to the state of California, which acted as a trustee for the
federal government until Yosemite, too, eventually gained park status.
The precedent for preservation had thereby been established, and in the
following years various groups pushed to preserve other scenic sites.
The supporters of Mesa Verde moved within this ground swell of interest,
although they stressed the cultural and historic attributes of their
potential park, not its natural wonders.
The Roosevelt era provided the best opportunity the
conservationists had ever enjoyed for arousing support and for winning
some of the battles they had been waging. Journalists and reporters,
politicians and public officials, easterners and westerners, became more
aware, more informed, and more involved, although the increased interest
did not necessarily transfer into advocacy and action on behalf of
conservation.
The push to preserve the Mesa Verde ruins clearly
benefited from the popularity of the larger national movement. Now,
everything seemed to be coming together, thanks to hard work and some
fortunate circumstances over which the women and their supporters could
exercise no control.
Hogg introduced another Mesa Verde National Park bill
in December 1905 in the House; Senator Thomas Patterson followed suit in
January 1906 in the Senate. Both bills survived committee votes, the
point at which so many earlier bills had died. Once more, pressure was
brought to bear. The Nebraska Academy of Sciences, the Colorado Equal
Suffrage Association, the Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Sciences, the
Pueblo Business Men's Association, the Colorado State Forestry
Association, "men of high character" (professors and scholars), and
"learned" women all endorsed and urged passage of the bill. Colorado
governor Jesse McDonald wrote: "The People of Colorado, and I believe of
the entire West, would be glad to see this bill favorably reported upon
by your committee [Senate], as we are quite anxious that this historical
place be properly protected." [4] Testimony in
support of the bill called attention to the national significance of the
ruins, the destruction that had already occurred, the unfit nature of
the land for agriculture and its classification as "poor range at the
best," and the potential tourist market. Proponents claimed that a park
"would bring money into such towns as Durango and Mancos." Once again,
the bills slowly wound their way through the congressional labyrinth,
while the members of the Association anxiously watched and awaited the
outcome.
This time the political atmosphere had changed, for a
very significant reason. A second major bill was under discussion: an
antiquities bill that would preserve historic and prehistoric ruins or
monuments on government lands. It, too, had been introduced earlier,
only to die, and it, too, had attracted more support, more interest, and
more publicity even when it failed. It was ardent conservationist Iowa
representative John Lacey who introduced the antiquities bill. Like
Shafroth and others, Lacey had long supported historic preservation. It
had been a long, drawn-out struggle to achieve agreement among all the
interested parties. Noted southwestern archaeologist Edgar Hewett, who
had worked persistently to protect important regional ruins, found it
easy to support enthusiastically both the park and the preservation
efforts and to rally his friends to the cause. Hewett was at the peak of
his career; the one-time college president and skilled writer had the
ability to create a scholarly and, at the same time, a popular account
of the prehistoric ruins, which caught the attention of both academia
and the general public.
Each bill complemented the other, since their goals
overlapped. Some of the resolutions and endorsements supported both the
park bill and the antiquities bill. Mesa Verde was, perhaps, the more
emotional issue, but the antiquities bill raised a broader-based
following, because of its benefits for the whole country, as opposed to
one state in particular. As the women fought for Mesa Verde, they plowed
the ground for the more sweeping antiquities idea at the same time.
Antiquities advocates later returned the favor, rallying to support the
specific park concept. It was a winning partnershipa two-front advance
toward a common goal.
In 1906, when both bills went before the House Public
Lands Committee, John Lacey was its chairman. Senator Patterson carried
the cause to the Senate by sponsoring an identical effort. [5] The bills moved ahead at the typical tortoise
pace, but they did move, with no major obstacles in their path. Beyond
Congress sat the enthusiastic President Theodore Roosevelt, a
conservationist, a historian, and an ardent supporter of all that the
two bills proposed.
After nearly a quarter of a century of pleading,
cajoling, and never-say-die lobbying by McClurg, and a decade's worth of
effort by most of the others, victory lay only a few short weeks, or
months at most, away. At this auspicious moment, the Association fell
apart when its leaders began assaulting each other with rancorous
name-calling over the old issue of state control versus federal
control.
The sudden discovery that none of the major cliff
dwellings was situated within the boundaries of the proposed park
certainly proved embarrassing but did not pose an insoluble problem. An
amendment to the bill was introduced to include in the park's
jurisdiction all the ruins within five miles of the boundary. The issue
should have rested there, but Virginia McClurg changed her mind ormore
accurately"reversed her position" and returned to her beloved idea of a
state park, which would be comfortably controlled by the Association.
Such an arrangement would, in effect, place the cliff dwellings under
her personal control.
No question of the cause surrounded this change of
heartat the moment of victory, the once-allied Peabody and McClurg fell
to fighting over the spoils. These two determined, independent, and
strong-willed women had pledged themselves to a common cause in Mesa
Verde; as the struggle for it continued, they could not completely
contain their individualism. The split, which could have been predicted,
had been long in coming.
Lucy Peabody, with her Washington connections,
ardently supported the national park idea, while McClurg had been won
over only by circumstances. Each had gathered her supporters within the
Association, but for a time the rift had been smoothed over for the sake
of the common aims. However, the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association
had refused, back in November 1905, to endorse officially Hogg's bill,
because it gave exclusive control of the national park to the secretary
of the interior, something Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock had pushed for.
The refusal also hinted at the problem of the non-included cliff
dwellings. [6] This lack of endorsement by the
Association had escaped attention during the hubbub of the next couple
of months.
Lucy Peabody as she appeared years after she played a role in
the Mesa Verde story. (Courtesy: Colorado Historical Society)
Then in February 1906, McClurg came out openly
against the bill, and all hell broke loose in the Association. Emotions
and opinions that once had been suppressed now burst into public view in
the face of numerous denials of a split in the ranks. Both factions
rapidly issued statements, attacking and denying; the public witnessed a
dismaying dissolution of unity. Peabody and McClurg battled it out in
the press and outside of it, catching Representative Hogg, among others,
in the cross fire. At one time he had supported McClurg. The following
charges are typical of the exchanges in the struggle:
Meat in the
coconut is that [McClurg] is loath to relinquish the prestige she has
gained by reason of her interest in preserving these ruins.
[Hogg's]
backbones belong rather to antediluvian dinosaurs than modern
legislators.
The action of the Colorado Cliff Dwellers Association, however, may
result in the defeat of this bill as well as the one that proposes to
put it under feminine and individual control, and the state may be left
in the lurch. [7]
All the slander made for gossipy press in February
1906, and for weeks thereafter the Denver newspapers reported the
turmoil. The infighting, as one member commented, "precipitated a warm
fight."
McClurg was attacked for putting her prestige too
much on the line and conducting a personal vendetta against Peabody,
when the park should have been of primary importance, and was castigated
for blinding herself to the fact that preservation belonged to the
government and not to a volunteer association of women to "manage it
according to feminine ideas." McClurg responded heatedly, pointing with
great glee to the women who maintained and operated Washington's Mount
Vernon and charging that very "few members of the Association" had
pressed for the national park.
McClurg's distrust of national control was shared by
other women, in particular the women of Mount Vernon. It reflected a
legitimate fear, as women did not even have the vote in most places yet.
Perhaps she also feared putting matters in the hands of the far-off
federal government with its "faceless bureaucracy." Lucy Peabody, more
experienced at working with and within the government, obviously did not
share such feelings or fears. Peabody continued to support publicly the
national park concept, pointing to Yellowstone as an example of what the
federal government could do with direct supervision. McClurg countered
rather unconvincingly that Mesa Verde would "not thrive" under either
state or federal control. Prompted by the belief that only her plan
could succeed, she sent an open letter to the Rocky Mountain News,
which published the letter on March 11, 1906. After graciously
praising Peabody and others for their excellent work, McClurg expressed
resentment of the slurs and mudslinging and thanked the Denver
Post for supporting her. She again attacked the Hogg bill, claiming
that the Association never had any national park policy, and pled for
the issue to be kept out of politics. She also threw in a new twist by
accusing the Peabody people of wanting the Utes removed so that those
with "covetous eyes" could seize Indian land. [8]
The accusations, half-truths, and mudslinging sullied
the park campaign; the women chose up sides and pressed ahead with
tattered banners. As it turned out, Virginia won the battle, but Lucy
won the war. Peabody resigned from the Association, taking her followers
with her and leaving Regent McClurg with a decimated membership and a
discredited cause. Even the Denver Post (February 23, 1906),
which had praised McClurg, now proclaimed that Mesa Verde belonged to
the world, not to any single organization. With a touch of sarcasm, a
little misidentification, and a large dose of truth, the writer asked,
"In fifty years from now who will care or know anything about the Cliff
Dwellings Protective Association?" Prophetically, the article stated,
"In fifty years from now if the government of the United States takes
care of those Cliff Dwellings, the whole world will know of them." The
Colorado press stayed involved, not only because of local interest in
the cause but also because of the urban rivalries that had begun with
Mancos, Cortez, and Durango vying for the tourist trade. Bigger stakes
now brought Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo into the competition
for their share of the glory. Some of the Denver support for Peabody
reflected a desire to detract some attention from McClurg's Colorado
Springs and her Pueblo supporters.
Countering the stories coming out of Colorado took
some effort. Edgar Hewett and others managed to defuse some of their
effects. Hewett's four-week visit to Mesa Verde in March and April 1906
inspired a long, enthusiastic letter that restated the value of the Mesa
Verde archaeological district and warned of the continuing "irreparable
damage" occurring every year. He supported the amended park bill and
believed that no injustice would be done to the Utes, since both they
and the park would be under the jurisdiction of the Department of the
Interior. [9]
Fortunately, while the women fought it out, Congress
paid more attention to Hewett's type of continued backing. The House and
Senate bills were pushed onward, as was the companion piece of
legislation, the Antiquities Act, which moved a little faster and was
signed by the president on June 8, 1906.
The Senate and the House both approved the Mesa Verde
National Park bill later in June, and on the twenty-ninth President
Theodore Roosevelt signed it. Section one carefully defined the park
boundaries; section two provided that all prehistoric ruins within five
miles of the park boundaries be "hereby placed under the custodianship
of the Secretary of the Interior," who also had "exclusive control" of
Mesa Verde National Park. The secretary was authorized to permit
examination, excavations, and other gathering of objects, provided that
they always "are undertaken only for the benefit of some reputable
museum, university, college, or other recognized scientific or
educational institution." Finally, to protect the ruins from vandalism,
a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment of not
longer than twelve months could be imposed on anyone guilty of violating
the ruins. [10] Curiously, this law established
a much harsher set of penalties than did the Antiquities Act. The long
struggle was at last over. The federal government now would chart the
future of Colorado's first national park.
Mesa Verde joined an illustrious group of six
national parks that included the already far-famed Yellowstone and
Yosemite as well as Sequoia, General Grant, Mount Rainier, and Crater
Lake. Unfortunately, during the previous four years, three new parks had
been set aside that did not measure up to the others' high standards.
This was possible because of the lack of a congressional policy to
govern the establishment of parks and of an agency to screen park
proposals. Of these three inferior parksWind Cave, Sullys Hill, and
Plattonly Wind Cave still exists as a national park. [11] Political pressure, local chauvinism, and
misguided enthusiasm had been allowed to rule. The need for a regulatory
agency was urgent, but no action came immediately. Some people
undoubtedly saw Mesa Verde as of little more consequence than its
recently born contemporaries. Some of the same methods had been used to
press for its creation, albeit on a broader national level. Fortunately
for Mesa Verde, its significance put it on a par with Yellowstone. Now
its supporters had to develop that potential.
Southwestern Coloradans backed the creation of the
park with far more enthusiasm than they supported nearby national
forests. Mesa Verde National Park displaced few people, threatened no
potential private interests, and promised ongoing benefits for the
region. On the other hand, creation of national forestsfor example Mesa
Verde's neighboring San Juan National Forest in 1905ended time-honored
frontier traditions that allowed public utilization of natural resources
with minimum payment and little or no government regulation. Local
residents could envision the closing or federal management of grazing,
mineral, and timber lands. They did not want to encourage that trend.
The West's ambivalent relationship with the federal government never was
more clearly shown than in this corner of Colorado.
The Colorado press's reaction to the momentous event
seemed relatively subdued, perhaps because the emotional fight of the
past few months had spent its energy. Mancos, however, fully appreciated
what had happened; that community had struck a potential gold mine.
"Mancos is IT. Mesa Verde National Park," hailed the Mancos
Times-Tribune. The editor thought this might be just the needed
spring tonic to energize the community and revive it from the economic
blues. He envisioned publicity, visitors, a first-class hotel, increased
sales for farmers and ranchers, and "thousands of dollars" in government
contracts. Mancos, he bubbled, harbored within a very short radius every
resource to make it a "first class town." It only remained for the
residents to "shake off your lethargy of mind and body, roll up your
sleeves and get out and help turn something up." Not satisfied, the
editor admonished: "Let us remember that cities are made not grown, and
the making depends upon the citizens themselves." [12]
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Main Street in Mancos, 1917, during the
town's heyday as the starting point for trips to Mesa Verde.
(Courtesy: Mesa Verde National Park)
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Of all the Colorado communities, little Mancos best
understood what Mesa Verde could mean economically. It obviously had the
most to gain, with Cortez out of the running and Durango apparently too
far away to take real advantage of this opportunity. Mancos determined
to turn Mesa Verde and the accompanying publicity windfall into an
economic energizer that would spark the village's attainment of "city"
status. Local surveyors had already won a contract to run the boundary
line between the park and the Ute reservation. What Mancos gained, so
did the region, the state, and the country. One newspaper reporter
caught that spirit: "Hats off to the women of the association, and three
cheers for Uncle Sam."
Unfortunately, the women could hardly hear the
cheers, nor had they much spirit for merrymaking. Virginia McClurg, who
had led the Association, had lost; Lucy Peabody, on the outside looking
in, had won. Adherents of both women carried on the petty fight for
months, justifying their own cause and attacking that of the others. The
public victory, like the congressional one, went to Peabody. The
American Anthropological Association extended to her its first-ever
public vote of thanks for "her valuable services . . . [and] untiring
effort," with no mention of McClurg. The press hailed Peabody as the
"Mother of Mesa Verde National Park," and the "gifted and charming" Lucy
(whose husband was the brother of Colorado's former governor James
Peabody) earned a bright star in the family's Colorado heritage:
"Perhaps, no woman in the country has more thorough and profound
knowledge of Archaeology, Anthropology and Ethnology, than this earnest,
able, enthusiastic student of scientific research. Colorado, the whole
Nation, owes her a debt of gratitude." [13]
McClurg's supporters tried in vain to balance the
story; their effort was doomed almost from the start by McClurg's
decision not to support the national park. The Denver Times
eventually recognized her contribution to the park's creation,
attributing the achievement "in largest measure to her patient,
continuous and self-denying work, covering a quarter century." She had
been the "moving spirit," who failed to finish the race and who lost out
before the cheering started. Virginia McClurg, unable to rise above the
personal jealousies and the clash of personalities that had exploded
over the past year, stood forlornly and bitterly on the sidelines for
the victory celebration. [14] Although the
breakdown of leadership did not fatally affect the park's establishment,
it did handicap McClurg personally, and she never recovered from the
setback. It would be over forty years before the last echoes of this
feud were heard.
In spite of the sad ending to their story, the women
had laid the foundation for Mesa Verde National Park and could be justly
proud of what they had set in motion. From their first interest in the
idea to the final battle, they stood in the vanguard, never retreating.
The park they created brought with it a multitude of blessings,
including the Antiquities Act, a new interest in archaeology, increased
public awareness of the non-European past of North America, and the
creation of four archaeological national monuments (Chaco Canyon,
Bandelier, Hovenweep, and Aztec Ruins) in the Four Corners area in less
than twenty years. Some of the characters in the Mesa Verde story also
fought to preserve other areas. Hewett, for example, was instrumental in
the Chaco Canyon designation. [15]
Mesa Verde had not been the first archaeological site
to be set asidethat claim belonged to Arizona's Casa Grande, which had
become a national monument in 1889, just as the Wetherills were
exhibiting their first collection. Mesa Verde became the first national
park, however, and as such was the crown jewel in the attempt to arouse
the public's interest in preserving more sites. As a result, the
Southwest would eventually boast of more archaeological national parks
and monuments than all the rest of the country. The Mesa Verde struggle
was also part of the ongoing establishment of federal regulations to
protect antiquities. [16]
An evolution of western attitudes was an unexpected
result of the campaign to create a park. More respect was being shown to
the Utes than ever before, although they languished yet some distance
from full equality in twentieth-century America. For the ancient
peoples, the day of appreciation had finally come. Westerners were
changing, and Colorado writer Eugene Parsons sensed that change as early
as 1906, when he wrote: "Hitherto Westerners have been too busy making a
living and getting rich to bother their heads much about cliff dwellings
and cave homes, but the time will come when men and women will feel a
curiosity to know something of the prehistoric past of the Southwest."
[17] The greatest legacies left by the women
who fought this good fight were the arousal of awareness, the
stimulation of concern, and the motivation for action. Their park had
achieved those things and more. The movement had been a watershed
struggle in the fight to preserve America's cultural heritage. There
would be no turning back now; Mesa Verde had set too valuable a
precedent for future national parks, which would benefit mightily from
the battle that had just been waged.
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